Black Gate: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 4 (30 page)

Kate kept on kissing Nicodemus, whose skin had become smooth and pale. Even the male’s hair was fair, a pale gold that fell past his shoulders in stark contrast to the obsidian female who had not released his face from her hands, or his lips from her kiss. The two males looked from her to the floor as a third male dropped to his knees, himself once more. The room was nearly cleared now, a handful of Triscani still wrapped in the Gate’s dark tendrils, waiting to touch his Marked Mates blackened flesh.

A strange hollowness opened up where his heart should have been racing in fear for his female. The Triscani didn’t resist her touch. They didn’t fight the tendrils or struggle to be set free. It was almost as if they were relieved, even welcomed death.

A fourth male fell to the floor, his hair a dark auburn and his pale blue eyes blinking slowly, as if he couldn’t comprehend where he was or what had just happened to him.

“By the Gods, that’s Liam. I thought he was dead.” Bran slammed his hand against the barrier. “Let’s get the fuck out of this cage.”

Teagh didn’t know who Liam was, but agreed. He pressed his palms flat and gathered his will just as the newly reborn Itaran males all turned toward the door as if something was happening in the hall. Teagh tensed. “That’ll be Raiden.”

“Yes. And probably Droghan with more Triscani.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

Teagh and Bran poured all of their energy into the wall of the cage. Nothing happened. It was impossible. Not even a ripple.

“It’s not working.”

Teagh sighed. “I know. I don’t understand. We should be able to break through.”

Robbie spoke again from where he’d been standing in the corner, watching and listening to everything going on with Kate. “No. It wasn’t Droghan’s will that created this prison. It was all of theirs.” Robbie pointed to what remained of the twenty Hunters that had been in the room short moments ago.

Nothing left now but the four stunned males, Nicodemus—the male’s lips still locked to his Marked Mate’s—and his beautiful Kate. They all stood in thin layer of ash. She’d defeated them all, killed every Triscani in the room. Sucked their souls dry like a Triscani would, and her flesh remained as black as the Gate itself. Teagh got a very, very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach as he watched her continue to hold Nicodemus to her, like a heavy chunk of cold lead had just settled in his abdomen. She wasn’t stopping. Was she still in there? Or was she lost to her own dark power? Just as lost as the forbidden sons around her had been when they turned?

His breathing was erratic until Katherine pulled away from Nicodemus at last and turned to look at him, as if she could see through the walls of his prison and straight into his soul. The air in his lungs froze in place. It wasn’t Katherine who stared at him, it was something infinitely else.

Nicodemus staggered back from her and sank to his knees, a look of wonder on his face. He looked completely normal once more, and Teagh realized he was the only full-blooded Itaran that she’d transformed. His power pulsed from him in waves as he stared up at his savior, Katherine, like she was his sun and stars, his very life. The others, the poor bastards that were pulling themselves to their feet, were half-bloods whose presence didn’t pack quite the psychic punch that Nicodemus did. Nicodemus was royalty, a true forbidden son of two Immortal parents. Powerful and deadly.

Katherine should have let Nicodemus die. That male would just turn again, faster than the others. And just like Ajax, Nicodemus would be nearly impossible to stop once he was set free on the Earthen plane. Too strong, too fast. Too fucking powerful.

Teagh still wanted to punch the bastard for kissing his female, but he was more worried about his Mate. She hadn’t changed back. She didn’t look human. She was blacker than coal and without an ounce of color. Her eyes were like black glass. She looked like a stone statue, carved and polished and uniform in color. Even to the tips of her hair.

She raised her arm and a tendril of darkness shot through the top of their prison, breaking it open in a fraction of a second. The five half-bloods scattered around her cried out in pain as what remained of their will within the walls was torn from them.

He tumbled to the floor with Bran and Robbie, but rolled onto his feet instantly, heading for Kate.

He didn’t even get close. The Gate sent a tendril out to wrap him up and lift him off the floor like a cartoon character, arms and legs flailing.

“Kate. Stop.”

Robbie answered. “She can’t.”

“Put me down. Please.” The dark lowered him to the ground and seemed uninterested in him, as long as he didn’t move closer to her.

“Bran?” Teagh hoped his brother had some inkling of what they could do next. He’d never seen or heard of anything like this. Maybe his brother, with his endless researching, had come across something that would help. He wasn’t going to give her up, not to the Triscani, not to the Gate, and not to whatever dark power possessed her now.

But his brother didn’t answer.

“Bran?”

“Not now.” Bran carried Raiden in from the hall and laid him down on the floor halfway between Kate and the door. Mari threw herself over Raiden’s chest, weeping. “I can’t get them out.” Mari sobbed. “There are too many of them. I can’t get them out.”

Bran knelt over Raiden’s body and Teagh cursed. “How many, Mari? How many did he ash?”

“I don’t know. I lost count.”

Bran turned to Teagh, but Bran only held his gaze for an instant before turning to Kate. “Kiss him, Kate. Before it’s too late.”

Chapter Sixteen

Kiss him.

Kiss him.

Kiss him.

The thought pounded through her body, the only two words she knew.

Kiss him.

She was still hungry. After endless time with barely enough energy to survive, the power she’d just claimed had been an appetizer.

She wanted more.

Males lay scattered at her feet. Five males whom she had allowed to live because they accepted her offering and agreed to serve.

They belonged to her now. New sons after going so long without.

Kiss him.

Kiss him.

Another son.

She reached out with one of her long, dark arms and lifted her new son from the floor. Gently, so gently, she cradled him in her welcoming embrace and brought him to her.

Raiden.
His eyes were open, and bursting with power, so much he couldn’t contain it without going mad, becoming one of the lost.

She pulled him closer and touched his face, placed her lips to his and drank the dark power he offered to her.

When she felt him resist, when the strength she fed upon no longer belonged to another soul, but to him, she stopped, but did not release him from her kiss.

Now, my son, you must choose.

She built the image in his mind so he would understand. She was the Gate between worlds, the trinity of power that was part of the great Mother Earth. She served the planet and the beings of light who dwelled both within, and above her.

She stood before him in human form, a goddess of night, and offered him a piece of her soul, a stone in the palm of her hand.

Choose.

He would serve her, in one form or another. He was her son and she loved him. But he and his brothers were meant to walk with her in the dark, to feed her body and give her the strength to be the barrier between worlds.

He could give himself, or he could hunt for another, but she could not abide him joining the legions of the lost.

Her son held out his hand and accepted her gift.

Thank you.

You are welcome.
She kissed him once more on the brow, well pleased, and lowered Raiden to the floor to join Nicodemus and his other four brothers.

They were six now, and they were none. She needed more. The dark energy had begun to leech through to the great Earth Mother thousands of years ago. She needed more sons and daughters to cradle the world and reclaim that which was Lost.

She could not give up this human body. She needed a voice to reach her children. She needed to walk in the world beyond the dark and hold them in her arms. Kiss them.

Trapped in the dark, only the lost ones and the Dark Lordling ever spoke to her. She served him, allowed him to direct her hand in the dark places, out of love. But he did not comprehend her purpose. He did not serve her. He did not feed her need for power or company.

She raised her new eyes to look at him. The Dark One. He was not her son, but he had found her anyway..

But Teagh thought of her as a child, a thing to be controlled.

She was neither.

Teagh. The name caused the female spirit within her to stir with love. An amazing gift, to feel the love of another after so long.

She spoke aloud, pleased to have a voice after thousands of years of silence. “Rise, my sons.”

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Teagh watched in awe as Kate took Raiden and kissed him full on the mouth. He could not envy Raiden nor deny him this. The poor bastard was turning into a Triscani Hunter right before his eyes, twisting and contorting with pain as black swirls moved beneath his skin like snakes under his flesh. With Mari weeping in the background, Teagh wanted to look away. Her pain was terrible to witness, but then Kate kissed him.

When Raiden’s color had returned to normal, Kate smiled and kissed him on the forehead like a mother kissing away a little boy’s hurt.

He was more than ready to go to Kate and hold her, get her out of this hell and safely back into his bed. He didn’t even care if her color never came back. The polished beauty of her stone-like flesh intrigued him. It was a bit weird, but he’d seen humans color their hair purple and blue, tattoo every bit of skin with a rainbow of colors and designs. Kate was Kate, and she was his, no matter what colors did or did not dance in her flesh.

Then she raised her eyes to his and he knew Kate was lost. It was not Kate who looked out at him, it was the goddess, and she’d chosen his Kate to house her power on this plane. Bran recognized her also and fell to his knees before her. Teagh knew he should show some deference as well, but he could not. Kate was his. He’d been taught to revere the goddess, but the love and awe he should be feeling were absent. Those were emotions he reserved for Kate. This being, this entity that was using her body, asked too much. He’d served her, served the Gate, for centuries. He’d sacrificed his life and his freedom to serve. He wouldn’t surrender Kate as well. It was too much to ask. Too much.

Rise, my sons.

Teagh watched as the Triscani Hunters, once again flesh and blood, staggered to their feet, Raiden among them.

Raiden smiled at her. “Thank you.”

Kate nodded her head regally and smiled, the sight oddly beautiful, her teeth and mouth as black as the rest of her.

Mari cried out and ran to him and Teagh envied her the right. He wanted to do the same with Kate, but running up to the creature that stood before him would not get the job done.

“Where is Kate?”

The goddess turned her attention back to him. “She is with me.”

Shit. Teagh had no idea how to talk to a god. He’d never done it before, and he didn’t want to make her angry, but he wanted his woman back.

As he debated, Robbie stepped forward and knelt before her.

The goddess looked down at him. “Yes, my son?”

“I know what you want. I can feel you inside my head, in my bones.” As Robbie spoke the black liquid color that Teagh had seen on Kate’s back earlier today rose and swirled in the exposed skin of Robbie’s face and neck.

She said nothing, waiting with the patience of eternity for the shaking kid to gather his courage and speak.

“Let me do it, instead. Let Kate go, and I’ll be your voice.”

The goddess looked deeply into Robbie’s eyes and placed her hand at his temple, caressed the side of his face.

“For Kate?”

“Yes. But I don’t want to be seventeen forever, and I don’t want to kiss anybody.”

The goddess smiled at him. “I accept.”

She kept her hand on his cheek and Teagh stepped closer as energy buzzed through the room making his hair stand on end. The darkness in his bones, the part of Her that he now realized he carried, hummed and sang inside him. He’d never felt that before. Always the darkness he carried had been hungry and hurting, desperate and alone for centuries. He’d known the stories of the Itaran Queen’s deal with the Gate, and how she’d cursed her own lineage by breaking her oath. But to realize that the Gate was this? A goddess?

He’d mistakenly thought the dark power in his bones was cold or evil. Sentient? Yes. But he’d thought it childlike and foolish. She had simply been alone in the dark, longing for company, and unable to communicate with him because he was not one of the forbidden sons. He felt stupid and shamed by his casual disregard, his ignorance.